Three bank employees, including a manager, in Bang Lamung district of Chon Buri, along with two interpreters, are in police custody for allegedly helping members of a Chinese call centre scam gang to open accounts in Thailand, which were allegedly used to park their ill-gotten gains, before they were transferred elsewhere.
Warrants for the arrests of 15 Chinese nationals have also been issued.
Pol Gen Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, the police inspector-general, told a news conference today that the three bank employees have been charged with falsifying documents to facilitate the opening of 15 bank accounts by the Chinese nationals, who entered Thailand on tourist visas, but who were actually working for a Chinese call centre, preying on both Chinese and Thai people.
He said that the scammers would use their ATM cards to withdraw money, cheated from their victims, from various ATMs, adding that about 90 million baht had been withdrawn over a relatively short time.
Thatchai claimed that the call centre had caused damage, estimated at about two billion baht, to hundreds of victims in Thailand and noted that there is a loophole in the Thai law, making it easy for people holding tourist visas to open a bank account in Thailand, saying that this loophole needs to be closed quickly.
